


All the little things.

by loisselina (LoisSelina)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Daddy Charming, Emma lets some anger off of her chest, Emma need to remember to communicate better, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, New Sibling, Parent Issues, Parent Prince Charming | David Nolan, Parenthood, Sibling Jealousy, Snowing make an honest mistake, faults on both sides, not blaming Snowing but Emma's angry, set after Kansas (3b), snowing got caught up in Neal's birth, the charmings - Freeform, they don't go back in time and Emma goes back to New York
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoisSelina/pseuds/loisselina
Summary: Canon Divergence from Kansas (Emma never goes to the past). Emma is fed up with her parents obsessing over the baby, it only gets worse once the baby is born, she decides to leave town and head back to New York, alone. David finds her a week later.





	All the little things.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justanoutlaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanoutlaw/gifts).



> I always thought that Emma would have experienced some sibling jealousy around the birth of Neal, after all she hadn't had her parents very long then Snow is suddenly very pregnant, and she has to share them with him. 
> 
> Dedicated to Justanoutlaw because it's fun got give her feels.

It was all the little things which were breaking Emma’s heart. It would have been a hard enough adjustment for anyone to find out that their parents were expecting another child, she would have felt a little put out after her mother’s speech in Neverland about wanting another chance, their second chance. She didn’t get a second chance. The little things kept chipping away at her, they were always talking about it, they asked her a few things about her and Henry’s life, and Walsh, but mostly it was asking her which names she liked better, or trying to get her to weigh in about car seats and prams, strollers, travel systems, cribs. The things all went into her room to be safely stored, she found that one day when she had gone to get some clothes which were back to her usual style, her mom had just said “Oh you don’t mind do you?” Before going back to look at strategies about how to stop the Wicked Witch’s plan.

She understood that Mary Margaret and David didn’t want their baby taken from them, not again, but Emma felt like she was losing her parents for the third time, and all she could do was pretend to smile and be happy for them.

* * *

 

The final cuts came just after the baby was born, they had stayed in the room together for as long as they could, David had sent her and Henry to the canteen to get food and she had tried to ignore the feeling that she was being sent away, she knew logically that he was worried that they hadn’t ate yet, but as they left her parents were staring at the baby as though they didn’t notice her or Henry’s absence from the room.

A nurse came by to let them know that visiting hours were over, David could stay but Emma and Henry had to go, Henry was going home with Regina he had missed her while he couldn’t remember her, which meant Emma would be alone.

“Da- David, Mary Margaret?” She called back to them as she walked out of the room. “I’m going home now, I’ll see you there tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you.”

“Bye.” Both of them called to her, but they didn’t even look over, it was as though a nurse or doctor was going home not their first born child.

* * *

 

  
Emma sat at the kitchen table, she had already taken her anger out on the toaster, she figured her mother would be annoyed again but she might not even notice… unless the baby wanted toast, she thought bitterly.

She knew that she was being jealous and selfish… probably. Or perhaps she was right? Why shouldn’t she be, it wasn’t like her parents were around, she knew that they had an excuse today after all the new baby had just been born but they hadn’t felt like her parents since she had gotten back from New York.

She took another swig of whisky straight from the bottle as the door suddenly unlocked and opened. “Dad!” She couldn’t stop the beaming smile appearing on her face. She felt like a little kid who had been waiting for their father to come home… minus the bottle of whisky.

David sent her a quick and distracted smile. “Hey kid, I’m not here for long I just need to grab a couple of things then I’m heading back to be with your mother and brother.” He beamed at the thought that his son was finally there. There was only one other time he had been this happy. He slipped into his and Mary Margaret’s bedroom, he grabbed her comfier pyjamas, she had been complaining about the ones they had given her since she had got there. He put them in the hospital bag and looked around for the couple of other things.

“Hey have you seen…?” He started to ask Emma but he saw what he was looking for in the crib.

“What are you looking for?” She asked, she hated how eager she sounded, desperate to help even when she was angry.

“It’s okay I found them.” He held up the blanket and teddy bear.

Emma frowned but she quickly realised that the blanket wasn’t hers, the ribbon was blue not purple, and there was no name on it. “That’s… that’s like mine.”

David hesitated. “Yeah, yeah it is, Granny’s going to put his name on it once we announce it at his naming ceremony. He looked at Emma properly for the first time, but quickly looked back at the blanket. It was hard, for him and Mary Margaret, having a new baby kept making them remember the time before. They felt nearly overwhelmed with guilt but they knew that they had to enjoy this new experience. He plastered a smile onto his face and held up the teddy bear. “And Mary Margaret and I found him this.”

Emma plastered on a smile which didn’t reach her eyes. “Brilliant.” She said unenthusiastically.

David didn’t notice. “I should get back to your mother… and your brother.” He chuckled in disbelief at that, he couldn’t believe that they had a son now, a son and a daughter. He eyed the bottle of whisky on the table. “Remember to get some sleep, Emma, love you.”

“Lo…… love….” Emma sighed as he closed the door behind him before she finished saying the first word.

* * *

 

 

A little over a week later Emma shut the door of her New York apartment behind her, it was late, nearly midnight, and she had had a very long couple of days hunting a guy down, he’d given her a nasty bruise on her jaw, but then she broke his nose so she considered them even. She saw the shape of a man standing in her living room and her hand went for the gun she no longer hand. It took her a second to realise that it was her father stood in front of her, she was about to smile but she realised that he looked pissed, _really_ pissed in fact. His arms were crossed over his chest and he had a look on his face like she’d come home late and smelling of alcohol… which technically she had, but she was an adult so the look was completely unjustified.   
“Y’know it’s illegal to break into peoples’ apartments?” She had meant it to sound jokey and defuse the tension but it came out venomous.

“Oh, so you’re going to call the cops and say what? ‘Yes, my father is in my apartment because I left town a week ago without saying a word and I keep refusing to take any calls or answer texts, please send help’? Because I think that if a cop heard that they would probably be on my side more than yours.”

“Until they got here and found that you’re the same age as me and would think that you’re just a crazy person and would lock you up.” She moved towards the kitchen and pulled out a carton of apple juice which she drank straight from the bottle. Now that Regina’s fake memories had faded so had her cooking skills, so inside were some takeout containers from the other night, she pulled out a slice of pizza and quickly wolfed it down.

She walked over to the couch, she kicked off her shoes happy to be free of heels, and picked up the controller for the PlayStation which she flicked on and begun to play the game she and Henry used to play. She kicked her feet up and had started to play when the controller was suddenly snatched from her hands. “Hey!”

David sat down on the coffee table in front of her and gave her his best stern dad look. “Cut it out, Emma.” He watched her sink down in her seat and start to pick at her hands. He sighed gently and she met his eyes, he didn’t bother trying to hide how hurt he was. “You left when your mom and I were sleeping. You didn’t even leave a note.” His voice broke. It had felt much longer than a week ago. She had run away from her family, without saying a word to them, he was angry as he thought that she was beyond that now. “You… The first we even knew about it was the next day when we saw Regina and she demanded to know why we were so happy, she thought that we approved of you taking off, completely leaving town forever! That we didn’t care!”

“I didn’t just take off, I made sure to get Regina to share custody of Henry, I get him a weekend every month, and some of the summer, an- and every other Christmas.” Her own words stung, it wasn’t enough and she knew it, but it hurt a lot less than being in Storybrooke. “I’m sorry for making you look bad in front of your friend for a few minutes.” She rolled her eyes as she pretended not to care.

“We don’t care about that and you know it. We didn’t even know where you lived because you just decided to completely block us from your life, we had to find out from Henry, then it took us a week to get everything we needed, and now _I’m here_ but you _still_ don’t care.” David growled. He sighed and took a few steadying breaths. “Emma, _talk to me_. I thought that we were finally happy, we’d finally become a family, then you just took off, like none of that mattered.”

“We were already a family!” The volume in her voice surprised even her. “The first curse broke and things were messy, and there were villains and difficulties, but we were _still_ a _family_. We had started living together, for the first time ever I had people there who I thought cared about me, who loved me for who I was no matter what. Then we went to Neverland and I almost lost _everything._ ”

David frowned. “We got Henry, he was safe, we saved him.” He said gently, he knew that it was beyond stressful for her but they had saved him, so why had she left him now?

Emma scoffed. She finally looked her father in the eyes, her eyes narrowed in a glare, which only increased with the unfounded hurt in his sea blue eyes. “I didn’t just nearly lose Henry. You and Mary Margaret were more than happy to leave me.” She watched him open his mouth and she shook her head fiercely. “Mary Margaret wanted another chance to have a baby, she said that she was proud of who I am but that it had nothing to do with you two, that _you_ were cheated out of things…” She took a shaky breath. “And that hurt… but I understood! Then you said that you couldn’t leave the island and I was so determined that we’d find a way to save you that I didn’t let myself think about the fact that Mary Margaret, my mother, would abandon me without a second thought so you two could go and raise a little Neverland Tarzan!”

“Emma.” his voice was quiet and pleading, begging her to see that it was just an offhanded idea, that if it had come to it, it would have been so much harder to leave her than they might or might not have made it seem.

“No.” She shook her head fiercely once more. “When we all got back safe I was so happy, I thought that we were heading back to normal then suddenly you’re back in one realm and I’m sent here without knowing anything about you, _just like last time_. When Hook gave me back my memories I was so happy because I got to see my mom and dad again, and Henry didn’t know who you were and I was planning on finding a way to fix that straight away, but then suddenly my mo- Mary Margaret’s seven months pregnant and it’s a shock to you but you’re overjoyed.” She took a deep breath and she looked at him with watery eyes. “Then I find out that I’m the ‘only hope’ to save the baby from the Wicked Witch, and that’s why I was back, _just_ for that reason.”

“Em.” David’s voice was barely above a whisper and he shook his head, that wasn’t the only reason, they were finding a way back to her it was just taking some time, they would never have just left her. His hand went out to hold hers but she snatched it away.

“So, I stayed, because that baby is my baby brother and I would do _anything_ to save him. Every time I was around all you talked about was the new baby and how excited you were about all the firsts you were going to experience or how you could name him after members of your families because you said it was important to try and carry on the names. Or you’d be going shopping to get him as many baby things as possible and because I was staying at Granny’s with Henry all the things were stored in my room and I understood, because it’s your apartment not mine.” She scrubbed away the tears and her jaw set with anger. “And the reason that you didn’t know where I lived is because whenever we spoke it was about the baby or Zelena, _that’s why you had to ask Henry not because you never had the chance to find it out_.” She made her hand into a fist to stop herself from crying. “Mary Margaret went into labour and she sent me out from the room because she said she didn’t want me to see it, and I got that, but I didn’t even get to stay in the waiting room because I had to go and stop Zelena, and I couldn’t even do that! You sent me off with just Hook, who you barely trust, to have my back. Then when they _shockingly_ failed you looked at me like I’d failed on purpose, because it was my fault that the Witch got him!”

“Emma, that’s not true.” He said softly.

“I didn’t even get to know the kid’s name because I was going to have to wait to hear it like the _rest of your royal subjects_ … I just… I couldn’t do it anymore... I couldn’t sit there smiling and pretending that you hadn’t broken my heart. I couldn’t pretend that every time I tried to talk to you and you got distracted by the baby, or I tried to spend time with you both you and you’d ask if it could wait ‘cause you’re busy, or I’d speak and you’d tell me to keep it down because the baby was sleeping, it didn’t make me feel like I was just Mary Margaret’s roommate.” She bit her lip and tasted blood. “So yeah, I left, because I not wanted there. You didn’t even realise that I’d gone ‘til Regina told you the next day, so don’t try to act like you noticed straight away and that it’s my fault.” She laughed sardonically.

“Emma, we didn’t know you felt like-… we didn’t think…”

“Oh, and I _did_ go to tell you I was leaving, I wasn’t going to just take off, like _you_ think I was. But when I got there you were both in your room about to take a nap, you were exhausted but you were still happier than I’ve _ever_ seen you. Mary Margaret said about how she was going to start taking the kid to the mommy and me class, after his naming ceremony, the special ones for first time mothers, and you didn’t even hesitate to say she was already a mother, you just asked if there were ones for first time fathers too. So, I didn’t see a point in going in to your room to try and tell you, because you wouldn’t have listened to me anyway, you would have just told me you’d listen to me later because you were busy. Like you always do.” She let out in a sob.

Tears ran down David’s cheeks. “Emma, we know that we’re not first time parents, we didn’t mean it like that. We love you, we’re so sorry that we made you feel like you weren’t just as important to us, _you are_. You’re our daughter, our baby, we love you.”

 Emma shook her head trying to remind herself that sometimes the promise of love just wasn’t enough. “Look, unless you’re here to ask me to help again you can go, I don’t have magic still so I won’t be much help, but I’ll help if you need me. If you’re not here for that tell Mary Margaret and the baby I said hi, and tell Henry I’ll see him in a few weeks, I’ll send you a Christmas card. Let yourself out whenever you want.” She stormed over to her bedroom and slammed the door, maybe if she made enough noise he wouldn’t hear that she was crying, or that her heart was tearing itself apart.

David Nolan fell onto the couch, he heard crying coming from Emma’s room, he wanted to run into it and hold her in his arms and never let go, but she was hurt, rightly so, and she was pissed. And he would make that worse, and David would never intentionally hurt his daughter, so he was stuck listening to her cry.   

* * *

 

“Why are you still awake?” She had meant to say, ‘Why are you still here?’, but she was distracted by the relief she felt that he was still there, the one she was trying to deny was real.

David looked up and saw Emma, her hair had curled but the bags under her eyes and the early hour told him that she hadn’t slept, and her cheeks were still red from the tears she had cried. “I don’t sleep much anymore.”

Emma nodded slowly, she hadn’t either since moving to the city, his voice would have given away the fact that he had been crying, even if his lost expression hadn’t. “That’s babies for you.”

David frowned at her breezy comment. “It wasn’t my youngest baby who was keeping me up. Your mom and I have barely slept since you left. We looked at your Facebook profile to contact people, asking them if they had seen you, we finally got a message back from another bails bonds person in New York, she spoke to your mother and I and confirmed that you were in this city, I know you told Henry that you would be but we panicked in case something had happened to you. We needed to make sure that you were okay. That you were alive…”

Emma noticed for the first time how tired he looked, there were lines at the corner of his eyes, and bags underneath them. He looked older suddenly. “I’m alive.” She said because she wasn’t close to being okay. She hadn’t thought that they’d be so worried, she’d made Henry aware of what was happening, and Regina, they didn’t have to be so worried. But then she was still worried about Henry. A parents’ worry, it seemed, never stopped, no matter how many children there were, or how old they were. “Why are you still here?”

“Because you said that I could let myself out whenever I wanted, and I have two things I need to do. The first thing is to apologise: I’m sorry Emma, for everything that your mother and I said and did, we didn’t mean to make you feel like you aren’t as important to us as your brother. We wouldn’t care if you never saved the town again and never went back to being sheriff and instead stayed home all the time putting together jigsaws.”

“Now I’m more offended that you think I’d put together jigsaws.” Emma murmured with a small smile on her face.

David smiled back at her. “I’m sorry that we made you feel like you couldn’t tell us how we were acting or how you were feeling.”

She realised two things then:   
1\. Her parents weren’t like all the other parental figures she had known in her life, these were _her parents_ , she could have told the how she felt. She should have told them that she felt jealous, perhaps it was understandable that she felt like that, perhaps it wasn’t. But her parents would have understood and would have cared, they would have made sure that she didn’t feel like that.  
2\. She realised that her parents did look at someone else with as much love as they looked at Neal with. She had never realised it before because she was the subject of the looks.  
“It’s not _just_ your fault. Either of you. I didn’t think… didn’t think to…” She admitted before dropping to the seat beside him. She dropped down onto the couch beside him and mustered up the courage to lean against him, dropping her head onto his chest. She heaved a sigh. “I’m tired, dad.”

David’s eyes filled with tears as she called him ‘dad’ for the first time without needing it to be a life of death situation. He knew that they would have to talk more, not just the two of them, but with Mary Margaret too, but for now things were getting better. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her forehead. “I know, kid, get some sleep it’s still early.”

“Hmm.” Emma hummed but didn’t move, she had forgotten how comforting her father’s hugs were, she regretted not letting him hug her more. She let her eyes fall shut even as she frowned. “You said there was two reasons.”

David smiled and pulled a throw from the back of the couch, he tucked it around her, his smile widened when Emma cuddled closer to him. That was new. “The second is to take you home.” He wanted to let her know the baby’s name, before anyone else, that they were just thinking of tradition and they should have remembered that things like this were different in this realm. And to ask her how she got the bruise. And most of all if she’d come home. “Your mom misses you.” That was putting it mildly, you’d have thought that there had been a death in the family, not a birth.

“Me too.” Emma mumbled before letting sleep take her, she hadn’t felt that safe or comfortable since she had left Storybrooke. Home. She knew everything would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Rest assured that was probably the last time David or Snow let Emma out of their sight after this. And they let her know how loved she is, not matter how embarrassed she becomes by them doing so, also Emma apologised to Henry for leaving town and him.


End file.
